


Death is Freedom

by JackAction



Category: 1984 - George Orwell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 13:08:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15120062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackAction/pseuds/JackAction
Summary: Summary: For my fanfiction, I wanted to explore some of the themes of 1984 by George Orwell such as the relationship between a  totalitarian governments and their citizens and explore the power of love through trying times and how one handles these situations.  I’ll appropriate some of the elements of 1984 such as some basic plot points and setting as well as the infamous 2+2=5 scene.  My goal is to be creative in how I express the psychology of how a prisoner of an oppressive government thinks and what his outlook on life is.





	Death is Freedom

Freedom is Death by JackAction  
Winston stared out of the diner looking at the grey deadpan faces taking on their usual monotonous habits. He glances down at what he has written in dust on his table. What he had written seemed completely normal and out of habit as well but he could not remember why this was habit. He glanced up at the ominous eyes of Big Brother watching him as he drank his Victory Gin. Suddenly a surge of excitement and emotion flared up inside of him, but immediately receded as a strong shock of mental pain numbed his excitement, for his mind knew that emotions, let alone positive ones, never last. He did not know, however, why these positive emotions have plagued him on and off in recent days. Winston sat indifference looking for a way out.  
“A way out of what,” he pondered flatly.  
Over the next couple of days winston returned to the same cafe, the same seat, and stared at the same dusty inscription on the stable as the same dead eyes of Big Brother stared at him. The telescreen played the what seemed to be the same news over and over. This was happiness, this is living in the present, thought Winston. He suddenly realized that he had captured another pattern of thought and became self aware of his terrible situation. Nevermind thought, as his mind was washed over with doubt and the same mill of thought ran through his mind again, though he was unaware.  
His mind ran blank as suddenly the image of a woman appeared in his mind. She was topless and she was in the foreground with rolling green pastures behind her topped off with a vivid cloudless blue sky. He tilted his head down as he closed his eyes as if they were exposed to a bright white light was suddenly flashed in front of his face. Winston felt a hot needle press down on his emotional centers on his brain. Winston, of course, had known this woman from the past but something was blocking him from recognizing her and her memory. To him, the woman, she felt not as a woman, but an avatar of all that he loved and the world he yearned for that he could never have.  
“I do know this girl, I just know it,” Winston stammered in confusion.  
What made his pain worse was not that he could not recognize the girl. What heightened his pain was the bitter self awareness that a sort of cancer was plaguing his mind to prevent him from seeing and feeling the emotion of knowing who this girl was. The cancer made him feel guilty for seeing this girl and he was thinking two things at the same time. This controlling tumor punished him for his own thoughts as he strained to find release as he always had. All of these torturing thoughts happened in an instant and he quickly returned to his normal bluntness. He felt at ease again.  
Though at ease, Winston thought of not just the woman but his mind and how could not escape it and his feeling of not knowing which way is up.  
“People would rather be dead than free,” Winston suggested to himself, making himself feel better. Feeding the his tumor of nihilistic resignation.  
Another surge of emotion ran through him. “Why can’t my life be different, why can’t I find a way out of what I feel is a trap,” Winston wondered, “Nevermind these thoughts, Big Brother is always the answer and always will be.” Winston drank another gulp of victory gin, releasing him from another bout of painful introspection. Winston moved his eyes across the bustling crowd outside. Out of the sea of faces collectively keeping their eyes at their feet as a ever lurking eyes above them forced them this way. He felt the urge to keep his head down as well in this moment. The same as a guilty puppy or a traumatized child.  
But he almost effortlessly resisted this urge and while in this gentle strain his saw two piercing eyes of a woman. The same woman who had came to him moments earlier. Only this time, he didn’t look away. His body filled with restless hope, his mind filled with fear, wondering if she would approach him or whether or not he would allow himself to approach her. As his seat squeaked as he pushed himself back to approach her, she began to walk directly in his direction, stopping Winston in his seat never breaking eye contact with her. Her face softened as she paced toward him, seemingly unphased by the crowd as she cut through it. Winston whispered words in disbelief as he may finally remember who she was and why he had felt so strong about this woman. The closer she moved toward him, the more excited he became. As she approached the glass window, he became increasingly attentive to her face and who she was. To Winston’s horror, the woman’s face slit open as green grass of a pasture oozed our out of her face in all directions, then as pastures rolled to a finish, the horrific, deadpan eyes and face of Big Brother lunged after him only to dissipate into thin air along with the woman he yearned to make contact with. The surreal event launched Winston back into his chair, hyperventilating, and blinking hard, his mind racing to explain the seemingly schizophrenic illusion that he had just seen. Some of the occupants of the cafe looked at him with malice, but the bartender stared at him with a more cold malice then the others as most of the customers went back to their usual goings on. All returned to quiet as he strained to force himself back into the normal, monotone ambiance of the cafe. A report playing from the telescreen, Winston looked back at his inscription on the table and felt a sense of peace and happiness. He realized this happiness is not the happiness he intends to find in his being.  
“DAMN WHY CAN’T LIFE BE DIFFERENT!” he violently proclaimed in his head.  
His thoughts racing and questioning life again and what is real and could be done to change it, Winston’s forehead started to sweat. He wanted his life to change, he needed it, he could feel it, he had felt he had felt this way before. Sensing peculiar behavior, the bartender observed Winstons panicked demeanor. He waited to see what would come of him.  
“How should I go about liberation.” Winston weighed his options, fully becoming conscious of the hell he has been trapped in and endured.  
“I could cause an uproar and show everyone that you can be free, that life can be what we make it to be.”  
Winston then gazed up at a poster of the party’s slogan.  
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.  
Freedom. This was the word he tried to wrap is programmed mind around. What was freedom? He asked himself. Afterall, he had been told what is was for most of his life. But he fought hard to reduce freedom to his own definition. Finally he came to his conclusion-Death. Death was his way out, afterall what is living in this world, maybe death shall take him to a better place where he can finally live his own life and learn all the mysteries to life. To decide for himself and others to decide for themselves as well!  
“Yes, YES!” he thought, “death will be my communion with freedom and true everlasting peace.”  
Achieving what could only be explained as a spiritual catharsis. Winston stood up and looked at the bartender hysterically and the bartender looked at him with suspicion. Winston grabbed his glass of victory gin making one last sardonic gaze upon his dusty inscription and threw his glass at the bartender.  
“Hey! Stop!” the bartender commanded.  
Winston turned and burst of the cafe’s double doors. He ran down the center of the street as angry, confused citizens starred in awe as he ran. A hysterical smile adorned his face as a single tear ran down his eye. He became filled with delirious emotion as he ran.  
“How do I know that loving Big Brother is not an illusion?” he happily asked himself as he ran.  
As he was sprinting down the street, then appeared the backside of the woman he desperately tried to remember and know again.  
Still sprinting toward her, he remembered.  
“JULIA!” he told himself, “Julia.”  
Almost reaching her, Winston was free. Free at last.


End file.
